The Fields of Death - Scarrow Simon - Страница 94

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‘I know.’ Davout nodded. ‘Good night, sire.’

When the last of the officers had left the shuttered drawing room a sentry closed the door. Berthier remained seated at the table, having returned to his routine of updating the dwindling figures from the strength returns in his notebooks. Napoleon twisted one of the silver buttons on his greatcoat.

‘What do you think, Berthier?’

Berthier replied without looking up. ‘Think of what, sire?’

‘My abandoning the army.’

Berthier lowered his pen and looked up. ‘I think it may shortly become a necessity, sire.’

‘And will it be a mistake? Speak honestly, my friend.’

‘If you are captured by the Tsar, then you can expect little mercy from him given what happened to Moscow, and the other towns and villages we have marched through. Even if your life is spared, you can be sure that you will be humiliated, and France along with you. So, yes, sire. If it comes to it, then you must do everything in your power to avoid being taken by the Russians.’

‘Everything?’ Napoleon asked quietly.

‘Yes, sire,’ Berthier nodded. He had understood. ‘Even that.’

‘My surgeon has some phials of poison. I have always ensured that he carried them in case of such an emergency. I will keep one on my person from now on. As a precaution.’

‘It would be wise, sire.’

Both men were silent for a while before Napoleon stirred. ‘Of course, if I abandon the army, they will say I am a coward, my enemies.’

‘You must expect that. But the people of France will understand that it was necessary. They will know that as long as you are alive France must be counted a great nation. While you live, you inspire our soldiers to acts of greatness, and you awe our enemies. Soldiers can be replaced. You, sire, can not.’

Napoleon searched Berthier’s face for any sign of flattery or insincerity, but his chief of staff seemed utterly convinced by his own words. Napoleon smiled warmly at him. ‘You, too, cannot be replaced, my friend. You are the word to my thought. It is through your words that my will is exercised and France has won its greatness on the battlefield. I should have thanked you before now.’ Napoleon felt an uncomfortable surge of guilt as he recalled the numerous occasions he had slighted or insulted Berthier. He shifted uncomfortably and gestured towards the door. ‘I must think, alone. Leave your books for tonight. Go and find something to eat, some wine to drink and a bed by a warm fire.’

Berthier hesitated, then nodded. He gathered up his notebooks, placed them in his large leather despatch case and quietly left the room. Napoleon rose stiffly from his chair, then carried it across to the remains of the small fire glowing in the grate. He carefully placed some more logs on the flames and sat back, closing his eyes, surrendering to the comforting warmth. He pushed troubling thoughts aside and pictured himself on the lawn at Fontainebleau, in the summer, playing with his infant son.

‘Sire.’ A hand shook his shoulder gently.

Napoleon woke immediately, eyes wide as he looked into Berthier’s excited features.

‘What is it?’

‘Marshal Oudinot is here with me, sire.’ Berthier stepped aside to reveal Oudinot.

‘So?’

‘It’s best if the marshal explains himself.’

‘Explains what?’ Napoleon eased himself up. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was three o’clock in the morning. He had been asleep for over five hours, he realised, angry with himself.

Oudinot stepped forward. ‘I’ve come straight from my headquarters. sire. I’ll come to the point.’

‘Please do.’

‘A column of reinforcements under General Corbineau joined my command this evening.’

‘I know about that. He commands a brigade that was sent for from Vilna.’

‘That’s right. Corbineau intended to cross the Berezina at Borisov on his way to join us, but the day before yesterday he discovered the town was in Russian hands. So he questioned a local peasant to see if there was another place to cross the river. The peasant guided him to a ford eight miles north of Borisov, at the village of Studienka.’

‘I know it, but there’s no ford there.’

‘None marked on the map, sire. But Corbineau crossed there.’ Oudinot could not help smiling. ‘He says the water was no more than waist deep.’

There were several flashes in the night as the firing on the far side of the river faded away. Corbineau and his men had succeeded in storming the two guns that had been left to cover the unmarked ford. They had earlier waded across the freezing river, muskets held high, and driven off a company of Russian infantry before turning on the guns. Evidently the enemy had also known about the ford, but since it had not been marked on any maps they had posted only a token force to protect the crossing place. In the distance, to the south, there was an occasional rumble of artillery as Oudinot’s men carried out their diversionary attacks opposite Borisov. As Napoleon had hoped, the Russian forces strung out along the far bank had hurried south, marching to the sound of the guns.

As soon as Corbineau sent word back across the river that he had control of the far bank Napoleon gave the order for General Eblй’s engineers to set to work. The plan called for two bridges to be constructed in the darkness and the army was to begin crossing the moment they were completed. Davout’s and Victor’s corps were to cover the approaches to Studienka while the rest of the army crossed over. The swiftness of the current and the unevenness of the river bed had ruled out any attempt to ford the river in strength. Half the army would have been swept away and the rest would have been frozen by the immersion in the icy water.

A handful of braziers were lit on the east bank to provide illumination for the engineers, and a short time later some more fires appeared on the far bank as a second team of Eblй’s men began work from the other end, a hundred paces away. Napoleon strode down to the river bank to watch the progress. He found Eblй directing the work, a few feet from the edge of the icy current swirling downstream. Out in the river the dark figures of his men stood braced against the current as they held stout timbers in place while their comrades used a makeshift piledriver to ram the timbers into the river bed.

‘How goes it, General?’

Eblй turned and saluted. ‘The first trestle is in position, sire. We’ve been lucky with the frost.’

‘Lucky?’ Napoleon stared at the men standing up to their thighs in the river.

Eblй stamped his boot on the frozen river bank. ‘It’s hardened the mud. Makes it easier to get the materials down the bank.’

‘I see.’ Napoleon gestured towards the handful of wagons behind them. ‘I thought I gave orders to have all the wagons burned at Orsha.’

‘Yes, sire. However, I gave orders for my men to save a handful of wagons for our tools and nail barrels.’

‘You disobeyed my order.’

Eblй stared at him and then shrugged. ‘Evidently.’

‘Good man. I wish half my generals showed such initiative.’ Eblй looked relieved, but Napoleon pointed a finger at him. ‘Just don’t make a habit of it.’

Eblй laughed.

Napoleon looked round at the timber piled on the bank. ‘Will you have enough material to complete the job?’

‘That depends on Studienka, sire. The timber comes from the houses. My men are busy tearing the buildings down to get what we need. As long as the village is big enough, you can have your bridges.’

‘When will they be completed, General?’

‘Before noon tomorrow, if we are lucky. But the river is starting to rise, and there’s ice in it. That may slow us down. I can’t let the men work in these conditions for more than an hour at a time. I’ll work them in shifts. An hour in the water, and half an hour resting by the fires. Still, we’re going to lose many of them to the cold, sire.’

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